The greeting between the two men was cold, and the Prince almost immediately stepped between them. Nevertheless, Brott seemed to have a fancy to talk with Mr. Sabin.
“I was at Camperdown House yesterday,” he remarked. “Her Ladyship was regretting that she saw you so seldom.”
“I have been a little remiss,” Mr. Sabin answered. “I hope to lunch there to-morrow.”
“You have seen the evening paper, Brott?” the Prince asked.
“I saw the early editions,” Brott answered. “Is there anything fresh?”
The Prince dropped his voice a little. He drew Brott on one side.
“The Westminster declared that you had left for Windsor by an early train this afternoon, and gives a list of your Cabinet. The Pall Mall, on the other hand, declares that Letheringham will assuredly be sent for to-morrow.”
Brott shrugged his shoulders.
“There are bound to be a crop of such reports at a time like this,” he remarked.
The Prince dropped his voice almost to a whisper.
“Brott,” he said, “there is something which I have had it in my mind to say to you for the last few days. I am not perhaps a great politician, but, like many outsiders, I see perhaps a good deal of the game. I know fairly well what the feeling is in Vienna and Berlin. I can give you a word of advice.”
“You are very kind, Prince,” Brott remarked, looking uneasily over his shoulder. “But—”
“It is concerning Brand. There is no man more despised and disliked abroad, not only because he is a Jew and ill-bred, but because of his known sympathy with some of these anarchists who are perfect firebrands in Europe.”
“I am exceedingly obliged to you,” Brott answered hurriedly. “I am afraid, however, that you anticipate matters a good deal. I have not yet been asked to form a Cabinet. It is doubtful whether I ever shall. And, beyond that, it is also doubtful whether even if I am asked I shall accept.”
“I must confess,” the Prince said, “that you puzzle me. Every one says that the Premiership of the country is within your reach. It is surely the Mecca of all politicians.”
“There are complications,” Brott muttered. “You—”
He stopped short and moved towards the door. Lucille, unusually pale and grave, had just issued from the ladies’ ante-room, and joined Lady Carey, who was talking to Mr. Sabin. She touched the latter lightly on the arm.
“Help us to escape,” she said quickly. “I am weary of my task. Can we get away without their seeing us?”
Mr. Sabin offered his arm. They passed along the broad way, and as they were almost the last to leave the place, their carriage was easily found. The Prince and Mr. Brott appeared only in time to see Mr. Sabin turning away, hat in hand, from the curb-stone. Brott’s face darkened.
“Prince,” he said, “who is that man?”
The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
“A man,” he said, “who has more than once nearly ruined your country. His life has been a splendid failure. He would have given India to the Russians, but they mistrusted him and trifled away their chance. Once since then he nearly sold this country to Germany; it was a trifle only which intervened. He has been all his life devoted to one cause.”
“And that?” Brott asked.
“The restoration of the monarchy to France. He, as you of course know, is the Duc de Souspennier, the sole living member in the direct line of one of the most ancient and historical houses in England. My friend,” he added, turning to Mr. Sabin, “you have stolen a march upon us. We had not even an opportunity of making our adieux to the ladies.”
“I imagine,” Mr. Sabin answered, “that the cause of quarrel may rest with them. You were nowhere in sight when they came out.”
“These fascinating politics,” the Prince remarked. “We all want to talk politics to Mr. Brott just now.”
“I will wish you good-night, gentlemen,” Mr. Sabin said, and passed into the hotel.
The Prince touched Brott on the arm.
“Will you come round to the club, and take a hand at bridge?” he said.
Brott laughed shortly.
“I imagine,” he said, “that I should be an embarrassing guest to you just now at, say the Mallborough, or even at the St. James. I believe the aristocracy are looking forward to the possibility of my coming into power with something like terror.”
“I am not thoroughly versed; in the politics of this country,” the Prince said, “but I have always understood that your views were very much advanced. Dorset solemnly believes that you are pledged to exterminate the large landed proprietors, and I do not think he would be surprised to hear that you had a guillotine up your sleeve.”
The two men were strolling along Pall Mall. The Prince had lit a large cigar, and was apparently on the best of terms with himself and the world in general. Brott, on the contrary, was most unlike himself, preoccupied, and apparently ill at ease.
“The Duke and his class are, of course, my natural opponents,” Brott said shortly. “By the bye, Prince,” he added, suddenly turning towards him, and with a complete change of tone, “it is within your power to do me a favour.”
“You have only to command,” the Prince assured him good-naturedly.
“My rooms are close here,” Brott continued. “Will you accompany me there, and grant me the favour of a few minutes’ conversation?”
“Assuredly!” the Prince answered, flicking the end off his cigar. “It will be a pleasure.”
They walked on towards their destination in silence. Brott’s secretary was in the library with a huge pile of letters and telegrams before him. He welcomed Brott with relief.
“We have been sending all over London for you, sir,” he said.
Brott nodded.
“I am better out of the way for the present,” he answered. “Deny me to everybody for an hour, especially Letheringham. There is nothing here, I suppose, which cannot wait so long as that?”
The secretary looked a little doubtful.
“I think not, sir,” he decided.
“Very good. Go and get something to eat. You look fagged. And tell Hyson to bring up some liqueurs, will you! I shall be engaged for a short time.”
The secretary withdrew. A servant appeared with a little tray of liqueurs, and in obedience to an impatient gesture from his master, left them upon the table. Brott closed the door firmly.
“Prince,” he said, resuming his seat, “I wished to speak with you concerning the Countess.”
Saxe Leinitzer nodded.
“All right,” he said. “I am listening!”
“I understand,” Brott continued, “that you are one of her oldest friends, and also one of the trustees of her estates. I presume that you stand to her therefore to some extent in the position of an adviser?”
“It is perfectly true,” the Prince admitted.
“I, too, am an old friend, as she has doubtless told you,” Brott said. “All my life she has been the one woman whom I have desired to call my wife. That desire has never been so strong as at the present moment.”
The Prince removed his cigar from his mouth and looked grave.
“But, my dear Brott,” he said, “have you considered the enormous gulf between your—views? The Countess owns great hereditary estates, she comes from a family which is almost Royal, she herself is an aristocrat to the backbone. It is a class against which you have declared war. How can you possibly come together on common ground?”
Brott was silent for a moment. Looking at him steadily the Prince was surprised at the change in the man’s appearance. His cheeks seemed blanched and his skin drawn. He had lost flesh, his eyes were hollow, and he frequently betrayed in small mannerisms a nervousness wholly new and unfamiliar to him.
“You speak as a man of sense, Prince,” he said after a while. “You are absolutely correct. This matter has caused me a great deal of anxious thought. To falter at this moment is to lose, politically, all that I have worked for all my life. It is to lose the confidence of the people who have trusted me. It is a betrayal, the thought of which is a constant shame to me. But, on the other hand, Lucille is the dearest thing to me in life.”
The Prince’s expression was wholly sympathetic. The derision which lurked behind he kept wholly concealed. A strong man so abjectly in the toils, and he to be chosen for his confidant! It was melodrama with a dash of humour.
“If I am to help you,” the Prince said, “I must know everything. Have you made any proposals to Lucille? In plain words, how much of your political future are you disposed to sacrifice?”
“All!” Brott said hoarsely. “All for a certainty of her. Not one jot without.”
“And she?”
Brott sprang to his feet, white and nervous.
“It is where I am at fault,” he exclaimed. “It is why I have asked for your advice, your help perhaps. I do not find it easy to understand Lucille. Perhaps it is because I am not well versed in the ways of her sex. I find her elusive. She will give me no promise. Before I went to Glasgow I talked with her. If she would have married me then my political career was over—thrown on one side like an old garment. But she would give me no promise. In everything save the spoken words I crave she has promised me her love. Again there comes a climax. In a few hours I must make my final choice. I must decline to join Letheringham, in which case the King must send for me, or accept office with him, and throw away the one great chance of this generation. Letheringham’s Cabinet, of course, would be a moderate Liberal one, a paragon of milk and water in effectiveness. If I go in alone we make history. The moment of issue has come. And, Prince, although I have pleaded with all the force and all the earnestness I know, Lucille remains elusive. If I choose for her side—she promises me—reward. But it is vague to me. I don’t, I can’t understand! I want her for my wife, I want her for the rest of my life—nothing else. Tell me, is there any barrier to this? There are no complications in her life which I do not know of? I want your assurance. I want her promise. You understand me?”
“Yes, I understand you,” the Prince said gravely. “I understand more than you do. I understand Lucille’s position.”
Brott leaned forward with bright eyes.
“Ah!”
“Lucille, the Countess of Radantz, is at the present moment a married woman.”
Brott was speechless. His face was like a carved stone image, from which the life had wholly gone.
“Her husband—in name only, let me tell you, is the Mr. Sabin with whom we had supper this evening.”
“Great God!”
“Their marriage had strange features in it which are not my concern, or even yours,” the Prince said deliberately. “The truth is, that they have not lived together for years, they never will again, for their divorce proceedings would long ago have been concluded but for the complications arising from the difference between the Hungarian and the American laws. Here, without doubt, is the reason why the Countess has hesitated to pledge her word directly.”
“It is wonderful,” Brott said slowly. “But it explains everything.”
There was a loud knock at the door. The secretary appeared upon the threshold. Behind him was a tall, slim young man in traveling costume.
“The King’s messenger!” Brott exclaimed, rising to his feet.
The Prince presented himself with a low bow. Lucille had a copy of the morning paper in her hand.
“I congratulate you, Countess,” he said. “You progress admirably. It is a great step gained.”
Lucille, who was looking pale and nervous, regarded him with anxiety.
“A step! But it is everything. If these rumours are true, he refuses the attempt to form a Cabinet. He takes a subordinate position under Letheringham. Every paper this morning says that if this is so his political career is over. It is true, is it not?”
“It is a great gain,” the Prince said slowly.
“But it is everything,” Lucille declared, with a rising note of passion in her tone. “It was my task. It is accomplished. I demand my release.”
The Prince was silent for a moment.
“You are in a great hurry, Lucille,” he said.
“What if I am!” she replied fiercely. “Do you suppose that this life of lies and deceit is pleasant to me? Do you suppose that it is a pleasant task to lure a brave man on to his ruin?”
The Prince raised his eyebrows.
“Come,” he said, “you can have no sympathy with Reginald Brott, the sworn enemy of our class, a Socialist, a demagogue who would parcel out our lands in allotments, a man who has pledged himself to nothing more nor less than a revolution.”
“The man’s views are hateful enough,” she answered, “but he is in earnest, and however misguided he may be there is something noble in his unselfishness, in his, steady fixedness of purpose.”
The Prince’s face indicated his contempt.
“Such men,” he declared, “are only fit to be crushed like vermin under foot. In any other country save England we should have dealt with him differently.”
“This is all beside the question,” she declared. “My task was to prevent his becoming Prime Minister, and I have succeeded.”
The Prince gave vent to a little gesture of dissent. “Your task,” he said, “went a little farther than that. We require his political ruin.”
She pointed to the pile of newspapers upon the table.
“Read what they say!” she exclaimed. “There is not one who does not use that precise term. He has missed his opportunity. The people will never trust him again.”
“That, at any rate, is not certain,” the Prince said. “You must remember that before long he will realise that he has been your tool. What then? He will become more rabid than ever, more also to be feared. No, Lucille, your task is not yet over. He must be involved in an open and public scandal, and with you.”
She was white almost to the lips with passion.
“You expect a great deal!” she exclaimed. “You expect me to ruin my life, then, to give my honour as well as these weary months, this constant humiliation.”
“You are pleased to be melodramatic,” he said coldly. “It is quite possible to involve him without actually going to extremes.”
“And what of my husband?” she asked.
The Prince laughed unpleasantly.
“If you have not taught him complaisance,” he said, “it is possible, of course, that Mr. Sabin might be unkind. But what of it? You are your own mistress. You are a woman of the world. Without him there is an infinitely greater future before you than as his wife you could ever enjoy.”
“You are pleased,” she said, “to be enigmatic.”
The Prince looked hard at her. Her face was white and set. He sighed.
“Lucille,” he said, “I have been very patient for many years. Yet you know very well my secret, and in your heart you know very well that I am one of those who generally win the thing upon which they have set their hearts. I have always loved you, Lucille, but never more than now. Fidelity is admirable, but surely you have done your duty. He is an old man, and a man who has failed in the great things of life. I, on the other hand, can offer you a great future. Saxe Leinitzer, as you know, is a kingdom of its own, and, Lucille, I stand well with the Emperor. The Socialist party in Berlin are strong and increasing. He needs us. Who can say what honours may not be in store for us? For I, too, am of the Royal House, Lucille. I am his kinsman. He never forgets that. Come, throw aside this restlessness. I will tell you how to deal with Brott, and the publicity, after all, will be nothing. We will go abroad directly afterwards.”
“Have you finished?” she asked.
“You will be reasonable!” he begged.
“Reasonable!” She turned upon him with flashing eyes. “I wonder how you ever dared to imagine that I could tolerate you for one moment as a lover or a husband. Wipe it out of your mind once and for all. You are repellent to me. Positively the only wish I have in connection with you is never to see your face again. As for my duty, I have done it. My conscience is clear. I shall leave this house to-day.”
“I hope,” the Prince said softly, “that you will do nothing rash!”
“In an hour,” she said, “I shall be at the Carlton with my husband. I will trust to him to protect me from you.”
The Prince shook his head.
“You talk rashly,” he said. “You do not think. You are forbidden to leave this house. You are forbidden to join your husband.”
She laughed scornfully, but underneath was a tremor of uneasiness.
“You summoned me from America,” she said, “and I came... I was forced to leave my husband without even a word of farewell. I did it! You set me a task—I have accomplished it. I claim that I have kept my bond, that I have worked out my own freedom. If you require more of me, I say that you are overstepping your authority, and I refuse. Set the black cross against my name if you will. I will take the risk.”
The Prince came a little nearer to her. She held her own bravely enough, but there was a look in his face which terrified her.
“Lucille,” he said, “you force me to disclose something which I have kept so far to myself. I wished to spare you anxiety, but you must understand that your safety depends upon your remaining in this house, and in keeping apart from all association with—your husband.”
“You will find it difficult,” she said, “to convince me of that.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “I shall find it easy—too easy, believe me. You will remember my finding you at the wine-shop of Emil Sachs?”
“Yes!”
“You refused to tell me the object of your visit. It was foolish, for of course I was informed. You procured from Emil a small quantity of the powder prepared according to the recipe of Herr Estentrauzen, and for which we paid him ten thousand marks. It is the most silent, the most secret, the most swift poison yet discovered.”
“I got it for myself,” she said coldly. “There have been times when I have felt that the possession of something of that sort was an absolute necessity.”
“I do not question you as to the reason for your getting it,” he answered. “Very shortly afterwards you left your carriage in Pall Mall, and without even asking for your husband you called at his hotel—you stole up into his room.”
“I took some roses there and left them,” she said “What of that?”
“Only that you were the last person seen to enter Mr. Sabin’s rooms before Duson was found there dead. And Duson died from a dose of that same poison, a packet of which you procured secretly from Emil Sachs. An empty wineglass was by his side—it was one generally used by Mr. Sabin. I know that the English police, who are not so foolish as people would have one believe, are searching now for the woman who was seen to enter the sitting-room shortly before Mr. Sabin returned and found Duson there dead.”
She laughed scornfully.
“It is ingenious,” she admitted, “and perhaps a little unfortunate for me. But the inference is ridiculous. What interest had I in the man’s death?”
“None, of course!” the Prince said. “But, Lucille, in all cases of poisoning it is the wife of whom one first thinks!”
“The wife? I did not even know that the creature had a wife.”
“Of course not! But Duson drank from Mr. Sabin’s glass, and you are Mr. Sabin’s wife. You are living apart from him. He is old and you are young. And for the other man—there is Reginald Brott. Your names have been coupled together, of course. See what an excellent case stands there. You procure the poison—secretly. You make your way to your husband’s room—secretly. The fatal dose is taken from your husband’s wineglass. You leave no note, no message. The poison of which the man died is exactly the same as you procured from Sachs. Lucille, after all, do you wonder that the police are looking for a woman in black with an ermine toque? What a mercy you wore a thick veil!”
She sat down suddenly.
“This is hideous,” she said.
“Think it over,” he said, “step by step. It is wonderful how all the incidents dovetail into one another.”
“Too wonderful,” she cried. “It sounds like some vile plot to incriminate me. How much had you to do with this, Prince?”
“Don’t be a fool!” he answered roughly. “Can’t you see for yourself that your arrest would be the most terrible thing that could happen for us? Even Sachs might break down in cross-examination, and you—well, you are a woman, and you want to live. We should all be in the most deadly peril. Lucille, I would have spared you this anxiety if I could, but your defiance made it necessary. There was no other way of getting you away from England to-night except by telling you the truth.”
“Away from England to-night,” she repeated vaguely. “But I will not go. It is impossible.”
“It is imperative,” the Prince declared, with a sharp ring of authority in his tone. “It is your own folly, for which you have to pay. You went secretly to Emil Sachs. You paid surreptitious visits to your husband, which were simply madness. You have involved us all in danger. For our own sakes we must see that you are removed.”
“It is the very thing to excite suspicion—flight abroad,” she objected.
“Your flight,” he said coolly, “will be looked upon from a different point of view, for Reginald Brott must follow you. It will be an elopement, not a flight from justice.”
“And in case I should decline?” Lucille asked quietly.
The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, we have done the best we can for ourselves,” he said. “Come, I will be frank with you. There are great interests involved here, and, before all things, I have had to consider the welfare of our friends. That is my duty! Emil Sachs by this time is beyond risk of detection. He has left behind a letter, in which he confesses that he has for some time supplemented the profits of his wine-shop by selling secretly certain deadly poisons of his own concoctions. Alarmed at reading of the death of Duson immediately after he had sold a poison which the symptoms denoted he had fled the country. That letter is in the hands of the woman who remains in the wine-shop, and will only be used in case of necessity. By other means we have dissociated ourselves from Duson and all connection with him. I think I could go so far as to say that it would be impossible to implicate us. Our sole anxiety now, therefore, is to save you.”
Lucille rose to her feet.
“I shall go at once to my husband,” she said. “I shall tell him everything. I shall act on his advice.”
The Prince stood over by the door, and she heard the key turn.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” he said quietly. “You are in my power at last, Lucille. You will do my bidding, or—”
“Or what?”
“I shall myself send for the police and give you into custody!”
The Prince crossed the hall and entered the morning-room. Felix was there and Raoul de Brouillac. The Duchess sat at her writing-table, scribbling a note. Lady Carey, in a wonderful white serge costume, and a huge bunch of Neapolitan violets at her bosom, was lounging in an easy-chair, swinging her foot backwards and forwards. The Duke, in a very old tweed coat, but immaculate as to linen and the details of his toilet, stood a little apart, with a frown upon his forehead, and exactly that absorbed air which in the House of Lords usually indicated his intention to make a speech. The entrance of the Prince, who carefully closed the door behind him, was an event for which evidently they were all waiting.
“My good people,” he said blandly, “I wish you all a very good-morning.”
There was a little murmur of greetings, and before they had all subsided the Duke spoke.
“Saxe Leinitzer,” he said, “I have a few questions to ask you.”
The Prince looked across the room at him.
“By all means, Duke,” he said. “But is the present an opportune time?”
“Opportune or no, it is the time which I have selected,” the Duke answered stiffly. “I do not altogether understand what is going on in this house. I am beginning to wonder whether I have been misled.”
The Prince, as he twirled his fair moustache, glanced carelessly enough across at the Duchess. She was looking the other way.
“I became a—er—general member of this Society,” the Duke continued, “sympathising heartily with its objects as explained to me by you, Prince, and believing, although to confess it is somewhat of a humiliation, that a certain amount of—er—combination amongst the aristocracy has become necessary to resist the terrible increase of Socialism which we must all so much deplore.”
“You are not making a speech, dear,” the Duchess remarked, looking coldly across the room at him. “We are all anxious to hear what the Prince has to say to us.”
“Your anxiety,” the Duke continued, “and the anxiety of our friends must be restrained for a few minutes, for there are certain things which I am determined to say, and to say them now. I must confess that it was at first a painful shock to me to realise that the time had come when it was necessary for us to take any heed of the uneducated rabble who seem born into the world discontented with their station in life, and instead of making honest attempts to improve it waste their time railing against us who are more fortunately placed, and in endeavours to mislead in every possible way the electorate of the country.”
The Prince sighed softly, and lit a cigarette. Lady Carey and Felix were already smoking.
“However,” the Duke continued, “I was convinced. I have always believed in the principle of watching closely the various signs of the times, and I may say that I came to the conclusion that a combination of the thinking members of the aristocratic party throughout the world was an excellent idea. I therefore became what is, I believe, called a general member of the Order, of which I believe you, Prince, are the actual head.”
“My dear James,” the Duchess murmured, “the Prince has something to say to us.”
“The Prince,” her husband answered coldly, “can keep back his information for a few minutes. I am determined to place my position clearly before all of you who are present here now. It is only since I have joined this Society that I have been made aware that in addition to the general members, of which body I believe that the Duchess and I are the sole representatives here, there are special members, and members of the inner circle. And I understand that in connection with these there is a great machinery of intrigue going on all the time, with branches all over the world, spies everywhere with unlimited funds, and with huge opportunities of good or evil. In effect I have become an outside member of what is nothing more nor less than a very powerful and, it seems to me, daring secret society.”
“So far as you are concerned, Duke,” the Prince said, “your responsibility ceases with ordinary membership. You can take no count of anything beyond. The time may come when the inner circle may be opened to you.”
The Duke coughed.
“You misapprehend me,” he said. “I can assure you I am not anxious for promotion. On the contrary, I stand before you an aggrieved person. I have come to the conclusion that my house, and the shelter of my wife’s name, have been used for a plot, the main points of which have been kept wholly secret from me.”
The Prince flicked his cigarette ash into the grate.
“My dear Dorset,” he said gently, “if you will allow me to explain—”
“I thank you, Saxe Leinitzer,” the Duke said coldly, “but it is beginning to occur to me that I have had enough of your explanations. It seemed natural enough to me, and I must say well conceived, that some attempt should be made to modify the views of, if not wholly convert, Reginald Brott by means of the influence of a very charming woman. It was my duty as a member of the Order to assist in this, and the shelter of my house and name were freely accorded to the Countess. But it is news to me to find that she was brought here practically by force. That because she was an inner member and therefore bound to implicit obedience that she was dragged away from her husband, kept apart from him against her will, forced into endeavours to make a fool of Brott even at the cost of her good name. And now, worst of all, I am told that a very deeply laid plot on the part of some of you will compel her to leave England almost at once, and that her safety depends upon her inducing Reginald Brott to accompany her.”
“She has appealed to you,” the Prince muttered.
“She has done nothing so sensible,” the Duke answered drily. “The facts which I have just stated are known to every one in this room. I perhaps know less than any one. But I know enough for this. I request, Saxe Leinitzer, that you withdraw the name of myself and my wife from your list of members, and that you understand clearly that my house is to be no more used for meetings of the Society, formal or informal. And, further, though I regret the apparent inhospitality of my action, my finger is now, as you see, upon the bell, and I venture to wish you all a very good-morning. Groves,” he added to the servant who answered the door, “the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer’s carriage is urgently required.”
The Prince and Lady Carey descended the broad steps side by side. She was laughing softly but immoderately. The Prince was pale with fury.
“Pompous old ass,” he muttered savagely. “He may have a worse scandal in his house now than he dreams of.”
She wiped her eyes.
“Have I not always told you,” she said, “that intrigue in this country was a sheer impossibility? You may lay your plans ever so carefully, but you cannot foresee such a contretemps as this.”
“Idiot!” the Prince cried. “Oh, the dolt! Why, even his wife was amazed.”
“He may be all those pleasant things,” Lady Carey, said, “but he is a gentleman.”
He stopped short. The footman was standing by the side of Lady Carey’s victoria with a rug on his arm.
“Lucille,” he said thoughtfully, “is locked in the morning-room. She is prostrate with fear. If the Duke sees her everything is over. Upon my word, I have a good mind to throw this all up and cross to Paris to-night. Let England breed her own revolutions. What do you say, Muriel? Will you come with me?”
She laughed scornfully.
“I’d as soon go with my coachman,” she said.
His eyebrows narrowed. A dull, purple flush crept to his forehead.
“Your wit,” he said, “is a little coarse. Listen! You wish our first plan to go through?”
“Of course!”
“Then you must get Lucille out of that house. If she is left there she is absolutely lost to us. Apart from that, she is herself not safe. Our plan worked out too well. She is really in danger from this Duson affair.”
The laughter died away from Lady Carey’s face. She hesitated with her foot upon the step of her carriage.
“You can go back easily enough,” the Prince said. “You are the Duke’s cousin, and you were not included in his tirade. Lucille is in the morning-room, and here is the key. I brought it away with me. You must tell her that all our plans are broken, that we have certain knowledge that the police are on the track of this Duson affair. Get her to your house in Pont Street, and I will be round this afternoon. Or better still, take her to mine.”
Lady Carey stepped back on to the pavement. She was still, however, hesitating.
“Leave her with the Duke and Duchess,” the Prince said, “and she will dine with her husband to-night.”
Lady Carey took the key from his hand.
“I will try,” she said. “How shall you know whether I succeed?”
“I will wait in the gardens,” he answered. “I shall be out of sight, but I shall be able to see you come out. If you are alone I shall come to you. If she is with you I shall be at your house in an hour, and I promise you that she shall leave England to-night with me.”
“Poor Brott!” she murmured ironically.
The Prince smiled.
“He will follow her. Every one will believe that they left London together. That is all that is required.”
Lady Carey re-entered the house. The Prince made his way into the gardens. Ten minutes passed—a quarter of an hour. Then Lady Carey with Lucille reappeared, and stepping quickly into the victoria were driven away. The Prince drew a little sigh of relief. He looked at his watch, called a hansom, and drove to his club for lunch.
Another man, who had also been watching Dorset House from the gardens for several hours, also noted Lucille’s advent with relief. He followed the Prince out and entered another hansom.
“Follow that victoria which has just driven off,” he ordered. “Don’t lose sight of it. Double fare.”
The trap-door fell, and the man whipped up his horse.
Mr. Sabin received an early visitor whilst still lingering over a slight but elegant breakfast. Passmore seated himself in an easy-chair and accepted the cigar which his host himself selected for him.
“I am glad to see you,” Mr. Sabin said. “This affair of Duson’s remains a complete mystery to me. I am looking to you to help me solve it.”
The little man with the imperturbable face removed his cigar from his mouth and contemplated it steadfastly.
“It is mysterious,” he said. “There are circumstances in connection with it which even now puzzle me very much, very much indeed. There are circumstances in connection with it also which I fear may be a shock to you, sir.”
“My life,” Mr. Sabin said, with a faint smile, “has been made up of shocks. A few more or less may not hurt me.”
“Duson,” the detective said, “was at heart a faithful servant!”
“I believe it,” Mr. Sabin said.
“He was much attached to you!”
“I believe it.”
“It is possible that unwittingly he died for you.”
Mr. Sabin was silent. It was his way of avoiding a confession of surprise. And he was surprised. “You believe then,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “that the poison was intended for me?”
“Certainly I do,” the detective answered. “Duson was, after all, a valet, a person of little importance. There is no one to whom his removal could have been of sufficient importance to justify such extreme measures. With you it is different.”
Mr. Sabin knocked the ash from his cigarette.
“Why not be frank with me, Mr. Passmore?” he said. “There is no need to shelter yourself under professional reticence. Your connection with Scotland Yard ended, I believe, some time ago. You are free to speak or to keep silence. Do one or the other. Tell me what you think, and I will tell you what I know. That surely will be a fair exchange. You shall have my facts for your surmises.”
Passmore’s thin lips curled into a smile. “You know that I have left Scotland Yard then, sir?”
“Quite well! You are employed by them often, I believe, but you are not on the staff, not since the affair of Nerman and the code book.”
If Passmore had been capable of reverence, his eyes looked it at that moment.
“You knew this last night, sir?”
“Certainly!”
“Five years ago, sir,” he said, “I told my chief that in you the detective police of the world had lost one who must have been their king. More and more you convince me of it. I cannot believe that you are ignorant of the salient points concerning Duson’s death.”
“Treat me as being so, at any rate,” Mr. Sabin said.
“I am pardoned,” Passmore said, “for speaking plainly of family matters—my concern in which is of course purely professional?”
Mr. Sabin looked up for a moment, but he signified his assent.
“You left America,” Passmore said, “in search of your wife, formerly Countess of Radantz, who had left you unexpectedly.”
“It is true!” Mr. Sabin answered.
“Madame la Duchesse on reaching London became the guest of the Duchess of Dorset, where she has been staying since. Whilst there she has received many visits from Mr. Reginald Brott.”
Mr. Sabin’s face was as the face of a sphinx. He made no sign.
“You do not waste your time, sir, over the Society papers. Yet you have probably heard that Madame la Duchesse and Mr. Reginald Brott have been written about and spoken about as intimate friends. They have been seen together everywhere. Gossip has been busy with their names. Mr. Brott has followed the Countess into circles which before her coming he zealously eschewed. The Countess is everywhere regarded as a widow, and a marriage has been confidently spoken of.”
Mr. Sabin bowed his head slightly. But of expression there was in his face no sign.
“These things,” Passmore continued, “are common knowledge. I have spoken up to now of nothing which is not known to the world. I proceed differently.”
“Good!” Mr. Sabin said.
“There is,” Passmore continued, “in the foreign district of London a man named Emil Sachs, who keeps a curious sort of a wine-shop, and supplements his earnings by disposing at a high figure of certain rare and deadly poisons. A few days ago the Countess visited him and secured a small packet of the most deadly drug the man possesses.”
Mr. Sabin sat quite still. He was unmoved.
“The Countess,” Passmore continued, “shortly afterwards visited these rooms. An hour after her departure Duson was dead. He died from drinking out of your liqueur glass, into which a few specks of that powder, invisible almost to the naked eye, had been dropped. At Dorset House Reginald Brott was waiting for her. He left shortly afterwards in a state of agitation.”
“And from these things,” Mr. Sabin said, “you draw, I presume, the natural inference that Madame la Duchesse, desiring to marry her old admirer, Reginald Brott, first left me in America, and then, since I followed her here, attempted to poison me.”
“There is,” Passmore said, “a good deal of evidence to that effect.”
“Here,” Mr. Sabin said, handing him Duson’s letter, “is some evidence to the contrary.”
Passmore read the letter carefully.
“You believe this,” he asked, “to be genuine?”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“I am sure of it!” he answered.
“You recognise the handwriting?”
“Certainly!”
“And this came into your possession—how?”
“I found it on the table by Duson’s side.”
“You intend to produce it at the inquest?”
“I think not,” Mr. Sabin answered.
There was a short silence. Passmore was revolving a certain matter in his mind—thinking hard. Mr. Sabin was apparently trying to make rings of the blue smoke from his cigarette.
“Has it occurred to you,” Passmore asked, “to wonder for what reason your wife visited these rooms on the morning of Duson’s death?”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“I cannot say that it has.”
“She knew that you were not here,” Passmore continued. “She left no message. She came closely veiled and departed unrecognised.” Mr. Sabin nodded.
“There were reasons,” he said, “for that. But when you say that she left no message you are mistaken.”
Passmore nodded.
“Go on,” he said.
Mr. Sabin nodded towards a great vase of La France roses upon a side table.
“I found these here on my return,” he said, “and attached to them the card which I believe is still there. Go and look at it.”
Passmore rose and bent over the fragrant blossoms. The card still remained, and on the back of it, in a delicate feminine handwriting: